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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: quit/close
From:       Don Sanders <sanders () kde ! org>
Date:       2000-08-03 9:40:35
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Wow that was a long mail.

On Wed, 02 Aug 2000, Thomas wrote:
> > I'm not too sure about how relevant the styleguidelines are here since
> > KMail doesn't really have documents.
>
> I do believe the styleguide is relevant:
> from the styleguide: (paraphrase)
>
> This document attempts to specify the look-and-feel for KDE applications.
> The goal is to provide some rules-of-thumb for developers to create their
> applications interface so that KDE software will have a consistent
> look-and-feel.
>
> The guidelines in this style guide are only suggestions - they are not set
> in stone. It is the application designer's duty to create a decent
> interface. Following rules will not do that, but common sense will.
>
> These guidelines are aimed at a typical application consisting of a
> menubar, toolbar, working area and statusbar. Not every application
> necessarily needs to have all these components, but if your application
> does, then the components should work as described here. Please note that
> not every component described must be present in your application.
>
> I read this as 'every application in KDE', this includes Kmail
>
> Second:
> Kmail IS document centric, because it focuses on ONE mail folder,
> or ONE message.  Although the initial process can spawn multiple windows
> (Messages, new clients) they are really all one document-per-window.
>
> > I think the current behavior is pretty sensible and that it would be a
> > bad idea to change it.
>
> I believe it does have some flaws:
>
> if you start an E-mail or two, and you type three pages, and don't send
> them, THEN select Quit, Kmail will close without prompting you about your
> incomplete messages.

I agree this behavior is not good.

>
> There can only be one active KMail window at a time (for some reason).
> You can't open two separate KMail applications at the same time.  Thus,
> if you Quit, that's it.  All your open Kmails are gone.

This is not true. You can have multiple KMail main windows open, 
"File->new mail client", it can actually be useful when searching when 
"search messages" too.

> In KDE we all use Single Document Interfaces, which means that it is
> possible to have multiple windows open of the same application with
> different documents. It also means that the individual 'instances' of
> an application have nothing to do with each other.
> The reason we argued that 'the different instances have nothing to do
> with each other' has two arguments;
> - When different documents are on differrent virtual desktops then how
>   is the user going to be able to see what the 'quit' will do.
> - When an application is embedded in another the user will not recognice
>   the part as the same thing as another seperate application. Therefor
>   quit will not do as he expects.
>
> While the second argument is not really for Kmail, the first certainly is.
>
> With these 3 examples I hope to have shown that Kmail did not come up with
> a better solution to the quit/close arguments as is shown in the current
> styleguide.
> Kmail certainly has problems of its own, most of which are taken care of
> in the styleguide.
>
> While I am not arguing the styleguide is perfect it does have one big
> advantage; the rest of KDE uses it.
>
> My proposal below stays valid.
>
> > <q>
> > Package: kmail
> > Version: 1.1.62 (KDE 1.92 Beta >= 20000720)
> > Severity: normal
> >
> > The close/quit behaviour is not according to the styleguide.
> >
> > Quit is not supposed to close all application windows.
> >
> > In the case of Kmail the styleguide promotes the following behaviour:
> >
> > - close on the seperate composer windows, which close the window
> > - no close on the main window (close is suppost to close the
> >    document, but since no document  is every open..)
> > - quit on the main window to close the main window. If multiple views
> > are opened they should not be closed with this option.
> >
> > Hope you can agree on this, if you have any questions don't hesitate to
> > ask. </q>
>
> I hope you don't mind. I CC'ed this to the kde-look list.

After thinking about it some more, I'm pretty much convinced that this 
document centric approach is better. I would only make a (small?) change to 
your recommendation:

  Instead of removing close on the main window remove quit. And keep the  
  current close behavior.

BFN,
Don.

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